Sound Advice

Monthly Archives: November 2016

Modifying Your Work Environments for Safe Noise Exposure

As an Owner or Employee who oversees your workplace environment for safety, have you also investigated how you can reduce hazardous noise in those work environments? What are some ways you can effectively modify your work environments for safe noise exposure?

The 1st Step should be understanding the impact noise exposure has on your workers, staff and visitors entering the workplace area.

Beside considering the noise exposure of your associates and the potential noise induced hearing loss (NIHL), consider the effect noise has on their stress and therefore their safety. Recognizing the high impact that noise will have on many different levels to your workers can help you introduce the correct measures and the degree of importance to ensure these measures are introduced and what time frames they are introduced in.

What are your regulatory levels for noise safety levels?

Understanding accurately your regulatory levels and reporting requirements will allow your enhanced compliance and safety for your workers. What are your company standards for noise safety levels? Do you plan to exceed the regulatory recommendations and provide even safer levels? Do you also factor in the time exposure as safety levels are set in accordance with the amounts of time exposure permitted at certain levels? Do you have an accurate time clock practice to ensure that workers on longer shifts or shifts that may overlap 24 hour periods are still falling within the safety parameters? Do you also have a way to determine the exposure of visitors or workers who travel within different areas of noise exposure?

Assessing your work environments.

Assessing your various work environments from many factors will ensure a much more accurate safety level. Assessing:

Your current machinery and other equipment used for their sound levels.

What new modifications exist or can be created for your current machinery or equipment?

What new equipment is available on the market that may impact your decision to possibly replace equipment?

Your worker’s exposure to noise – are there other options such as physical sound barriers that could be implemented in certain work areas?

How you measure noise levels – are noise levels being correctly determined by the noise measuring tools you use and are you correctly measuring under differing conditions that may impact how those noise levels are recorded?

The possibility of isolating a noise source to an area that will limit the amount of people exposed to that noise.

Regular maintenance and check up of equipment and machinery to eliminate or diminish noise based on improperly functioning equipment.

The work area where the noise takes place. Is this an enclosed area that may need or be able to have sound muffling measures added? Is this an open area where sound may travel with less precision or under differing weather or environmental conditions? For example, working on a road crew in an area that has cliffs or in a valley setting where noise can boomerang and creating even higher noise levels vs a stretch of road that is open and flat may produce very different levels of noise exposure to your workers.

Your warning postings in areas of high levels of noise or warning posting devices if machinery is turned on that suddenly creates a new level of noise.

ISO 9001 Certified

ISO 9001 is a comprehensive quality management system standard. ISO 9001is maintained by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization and is administered by independent accreditation and certification bodies.

Some of the requirements in ISO 9001 include:

A set written procedures covering all processes in the business

Monitoring processes continuously to ensure they are effective

Keeping accurate records

Checking output for defects and taking appropriate and corrective action where necessary

Regularly reviewing individual processes and the quality system itself for effectiveness

Facilitating continual improvement

Benefits of being ISO Certified

Each standard supports its own benefits within every industry, however the common benefits across the certificationsinclude: widened market potential, compliance to procurement tenders, improved efficiency and cost savings, higher level of customer service, and therefore satisfaction, and heightened staff moral and motivation.
By having a recognized management standard it allows us to tell our customers that when it comes to quality and industry standards, we are serious about their needs. CPE is proud to be ISO 9001 certified.

ProtectEar USA works with Custom Protect Ear to ensure the Quality of its products.

Custom Protect Ear has been independently audited and certified to be in conformance with ISO 9001. This certification assures our customers that the quality of the products they currently trust to protect their hearing, will be the same quality they will get every time in the future. In addition to being ISO 9001certified, CPE is a member of AIHA (American Industrial Hygiene Association) and the NHCA (National Hearing Conservation Association).

CPE is also a member of the Acoustical Society of America and serves on the standard setting bodies of the ANSI S12 Committee, Working Group 11, responsible for the standards by which hearing protection is measured, as well as CSA S304 Noise and Vibration Technical Committee responsible for CSA’s set of hearing loss prevention standards Z94.2-02.

Law Enforcement or Emergency Response Job & Hearing Loss

Your job is to help and protect the community in which you live but does your Law Enforcement or Emergency Response job expose you to Hearing Loss? Are you the one who needs help and protection?

If you are in Law Enforcement, First Response teams of Police, Fire Fighting or Ambulance are you exposed to high levels of noise that can cause hearing damage? What steps can you and your governing authorities take to ensure your hearing is protected from on-the-job damaging sounds, sirens and high decibel sounds from weapons related devices?

Firefighters File Lawsuits about Hearing Loss

For more than a decade Firefighters have been filing lawsuits against an Illinois-based company that makes sirens. The claims have centered around the concerns that the company that makes sirens did not do enough to design the fire trucks in a way that would shield the Fire Fighters from sound blasts that reach 120 dB. Noise in the range of 120 dB would be equivalent to the noise from a jackhammer about 3 feet away and can cause pain and according to both OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)& NIOSH (The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)that level is outside of any time length of exposure for hearing safety. In other words, it is at a daily permissible noise level of 0 minutes!

Exposure to noise (Hearing Loss) from Weapons, support vehicles and equipment

What about Law Enforcement, Military, Security or Correctional Officer jobs? Not only are you exposed to noise from the sudden discharge of weapons related devices but you could also be exposed to noise from Helicopters, sirens from emergency support vehicles and equipment. A jet engine at 100 feet can emit 140dB of noise, a Military Jet Aircraft take-off from an aircraft carrier with afterburner at 50 feet can create 150dB of noise, a 12 Gauge Shotgun blast at close quarters can be as high as 165dB!

Personal (Custom) Hearing Protection Devices (HPD’s)

Most Governmental Workers exposed to noise are supplied HPD’s for use on the job. The importance of HPD’s is that they are the correct style of protection for the environment you will be in. You will need a different hearing protection device for the firing range where the focus will be on as much protection from noise as possible with less need for being able to hear commands or instructions. While on-the-job as a Law Enforcement Official in a situation where there is a strong possibility of weapons being fired, you would require a HPD that is instantly attenuated for gun fire but allows for certain necessary sounds to be heard such as interpersonal and radio communications or equipment.

Are you exposed to these high levels of noise on the job? Are you supplied and correctly using a personal hearing protection device that provides you the correct protection throughout your day? Have you been properly trained in its effective use?

Warning signs of hearing loss

Be aware of what the warning signs of hearing loss are. Understand that tinnitus or ringing in the ears may not be the sound of your background environment but may actually be the beginning signs temporary leading to permanent of hearing loss. Hearing loss due to damage is not reversible and in fact may lead to further damage as your loss of hearing may be causing you to turn up the volume of TV’s, music devices or phones. Recognize that hearing loss may also take the form of selective hearing loss of certain frequencies of sound. You may not hear high pitched sounds of a female or child’s voice but still be able to clearly hear the low pitched sound of a man speaking.

Take caution in your job and protect not only the public in your service oriented career but also take care to protect yourself and your valuable asset of hearing. Learn more..

Can Concert or Stadium Arena noise be cause for hearing concerns?

Enjoying your favourite music concert may be putting your hearing at risk!

Are you aware of noise induced hearing loss (NIHL)?

For many of us, we do not fully understand the concern of being exposed to loud noises. Intuitively we will cover our ears or “cringe” when a loud noise interrupts us but what happens when we put ourselves in potential “harms way”? What happens when we head off for an enjoyable night out at our favourite music bands concert? What happens when we head into an arena packed full of boisterously cheering fans for a fun time supporting our favourite sports team? Can concert or stadium arena noise be cause for hearing concerns?

Did you know? Concert Hearing Concerns

Did you know that Rock concert speakers have been measured at 110 – 140dB – loud enough to cause human pain or even rupture eardrums? This is not limited to “Rock” concerts but even the amplified noise of a “quieter” band has been measured in the range of 90 – 110dB or higher. Stadium crowd noise can even reach 130 dB. So, what do those decibel levels translate to when we are discussing noise induced hearing loss – NIHL?

Noise levels above 140 dB are not considered safe for any period of time, however brief. For children, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends no exposure above 120 dB.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health suggests even lower levels. The NIOSH daily permissible noise level exposure for sound levels at:

85dBA is 8 hours per day,

90dBA is 2 hours per day,

94dBA is 1 hour per day,

97dBA is 0.5 hour per day,

100dBA id 0.25 hour per day or less,

Over 112dBA is 0.

According to these suggestions a concert or stadium arena setting with noise levels above 112dBA would not be tolerated at all without concern for hearing loss!

Some professional singers have expressed their concern over hearing loss and are being proactive in protecting their hearing. Performers such as “Sting” and Chris Botti are also reaching out to inform people of the concern for protecting hearing. Read more…

“I hope that with The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary as a partner, Chris Botti and I are able to remind people of the critical need to protect their hearing,” says Sting, who narrated a Public Service Announcement (PSA) released by The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary

How may concert goers are heeding this warning about Hearing Loss?

We want to enjoy our concerts and stadium arenas so what are some options to protect our hearing?

Some concert promoters have now started to offer earplugs for sale during performances as public awareness to the problem of NIHL grows. As public awareness grows so does the need for Concert Promoters and Arena Managers to protect their ticket holders from noise induced harm and themselves from possible legal action.

To get top enjoyment and hearing protection at the same time you may want to investigate types of hearing protection that filters noise so that you can still hear conversations and enjoy the music or activity you came to be a part of.